Process of treating granular material.



A G. J. RAPP. PROCESS OF TREATING GRANULAR MATERlALf APPLICATION FILED DEC. 28. I916.

Patented Dec. 31,, 1918.

2 SHEETS-SHEET lzawm Attorney s A. G. J. RAPP."

PROCESS OF TREATING GRANULAR MATERIAL.

APPLICATION FILVED DEC. 28, I916.

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AXEI. a. J. MP1, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR T LINK-BELT comralw, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A CORPORATION or ILLINOIS.

success orrnnacrme GRANULAR MATERIAL;

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To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Axnr. G. J. RAPE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State 5 of Illinois, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Processes of Treating Granular Material, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements in the process of treating granular material and is directed toward means for drying, mixing or breaking up as the case may be, fragmentary or granular material.

In connection with molders sand my process is suitable for cooling and tempering molders sand. It is understood, of course, that this sand comes from molds in a clotted, heated, lumpy condition. Where the foundry is working under a high pressure the sand is used over and over again, it frequently happens that the temperature gets so high that it is almost impossible to keep the sand moist enough after it, has

been packed into the mold. My process,

cools and moistens or tempers the sand and breaks up any sintered or otherwise conglomerated masses of sand.

My process is equally well adaptedto use in connection with sand or dust which is to be dried because in this case it also breaks up and reduces the agglomerated'fragments. Other purposes of my invention will be obvious as they develop from time to time in the specification.

I have illustrated my invention as applied to a number of different types of machines or devices for carrying it out-though it will be obvious the invention might be carried out by a very large number of different types of mechanisms.

The invention is illustrated more or less diagrammaticallyv in the accompanying drawings, wherein Figure 1 is a plan view;

Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a detail showing the arrangement of the beating arm. 7

Like parts are indicated by like letters throughout the several figures.

I will now describe the preferred form of machine or apparatus for carrying out my invention. A is a foundation wall containing a hopper A}. A is a. discharge chute leading Specification of Letters Patent.

Fig. 2 is a section along, the line 22 :off;.' l I'n' the modified form material is projected in two streams which intersect, thus the Patented Dec. 311, 1918.

Application filed December 28, 1916. Serial No. 139,237.

therefrom. A, A are parallel upwardly extending supporting frames, projecting upwardly from the foundation wall A. B is a drive shaft rotatably mounted in the bearings 13 in the frames A, A It carries at one end a pulley B? whereby the shaft may be rotatedby anysuitable source of power not here shown. B is a. beater hub mounted on the shaft. Projecting outwardly'from this beater hub are aseries of beater arms B. These beater arms are arranged in two groups, the group on one side, inclined with respect to the group on the other side, and both. groups being so arranged that material being struck by these beater arms when they are in a substantially vertical position and above the hub will be concentrated toward the center of the housing. That is to say, as the shaft rotates in a clockwise direction the front faces of the arms are inclined inwardly and lrearwardly.-

C is a housing adapted to inclose the beating device. C is a hopper for feeding ma beating vanes or paddles, the housing being adapted to discharge into the hopper A Rods D dependdownwardly from the top of the housing in front of theshaft. The rods are arranged in tiers or banks as indicated and swing freely. They extend down sofar that all the material which is hit by the beater arms and projected forward strikes against them or passes through them so that they serve as a flexible curtain on or interruption to arrest and deflect the material and toprevent too great a discharge of ;material against the end of the housing.

The curtain ofrods through which way little of the material will pass, serves, of course, to break up and mix the material,

"factory mixing.

.the focal point and impinge one upon another. In this modified form the two septoward the focal point in exactly the same way as do the fans-in the preferred form.

- L also showa flexible curtain made of a thin flexible diaphragm instead of rods.

Gbviously in this case the material. will be struck more suddenly than by the rodsibut even so no material can pack to Jhe thin flexible rapidly 'v rating -diah agm.

The use and operation of my device are as 1 follows: a

Materials such as sand, dust, coal or the like which is to be broken up or mixed, is

fed into the hopper at the top while the shaft is rotating rapidly. All the material as it comes in is struck -.by the heaters or paddles and projected forwardly against the curtain of bars. As soon as it strikes this curtain it drops down. Possibly other material may pass through the curtain and be projected against the side of the housing or against the back of the housing. Most of it, .however, is stopped completely .and'drops through to the openbottom of the housing.

I The inclination of the front of the work- .ing surface of the beater arms results'in throwing the material from one side of the beater toward the opposite side of the h0using. The result is that the different groups of material are thrown against the moving screen along converging lines, thus assisting in the intermixing and intermingling of the separate particles of material.

It will be noted'that in the preferred form the material is fed in a general mass downwardly into the housing in such wise that as it falls freely under the influence of gravity it comes in contact with the beater. vanes.

These beater vanes are inclined some of them more than others, the inclination increasing outwardly, toward the. ends of the vanes. Material is fed sothat some of it comes in contact with all the vanes and when these vanes strike it they project each and every particle violently forward along a tangential line substantially at right angles to the direction of the fall, The tangential path followed by these different particles ispeculiar in that the varying inclination of the-vanes tends to cause all the particles to converge toward the central part removed from the beater. These. converging particles will at "that central focal pointbe congested or concentrated together and will strike one upon another thus both by the impact of the vanes 'and by the impact of one particle upon an-' other the concentraterd fragments of material will largely be broken up and the different particles will be mixed about so that there will be an effective mixing and distribution of the particlesyfor instance if a relatively heavy and relatively light particle or adheremomma come together they will glance ofi at an angle in another part of the apparatus and since this process is constantly going on a thorough mixing will take place.

If it is desired to increase the mixing and breaking effect or if it is desired to have the process carried out in an apparatus of relatively'small size a flexible curtain of rods is used. This curtain has a two-fold function. It stops the movement of the material and .concentrates it in a centrally located discharge area. '-It is placed so near to the heating member that even the lightest particles it and allowed to drop freely down the discharge. If this curtain is dispensed with the particles will co'ntinuetheir movement until reach it and all the particles are stopped by air friction arrests them, the heavier particles going farther than the lighter ones. v This, of course, will result in a sorting or dividing of the product up into masses of different sizes and if this is not objectionable and if am Is space is available, there might be no nee for the curtain and the curtain might be dispensed with.

- .It will be understood that the rods making up this curtain are comparatively thin and light. They then give very freely to the impact of the blow and do not arrest the material with absolute suddenness and because they give and bend and vibrate there is no tendency for the material to pack on the rod. Of course, the flexible curtain might be made of other materials than the rods as indicated but I find these rods lend themselves peculiarly well to this operation because by their-separate vibrations they tend to clean one another and each to clean itself because their-very shape tends to preventlthe matestreams are fed into two separate beaters the process is exactly the same; These strea s converge the material, the particles impinge one upon another and are mixed and separated.

One important feature of my process is that when this work is done in a closed chamber the beating'vanes agitate the air and the particles are blown about by a hurricane of an air blast which blast is dis- .tributed and broken up by the curtain and by the impingement against the side of *the chamber. Thus the material is constantly subject to an air blast which arrests it. The result is that when molding sand isbeing treated, peculiarly light and flufl y sand, which experience shows is exceedingly valuable in the foundry, is obtained. 4

naaenaa In cooling and treating molding sand the sand would first be moistened and it might be desirable to intrpduce moisture into the chamber with the sand by separate means as suggested. This moisture'tend s to settle on individual grains. Thus the fact that each individual rain of sand is thrown about in the air an that the air has free access to it increases the speed of this vibration, tends thereby to cool the sand, thus the sand after being passed through from the machine may be instantly used and by keeping the molder sand going through the machine the moldei's may be in operation day and night it necessary, with a minimum of sand in use.

In the preferred form Where-the material is fed under the influence of gravity and falls'freely in the path of the beating vanes, it will be observed that the shape of the hopper and discharge'throat is such that the material is fed in .a more or less thin sheet and since the beating vanes are set in shafts at different inclinations, there will never be the tendency for all the material when struck by the vanes to concentrate ina single focal area. This insures, of course, a very fine and effective" division and mixin of the material and it prevents the possibllity 'of that part of the material which may happen to be discharged in front of the outer vanes from not being mixed with the remaining mass. Since the major part'of mixing takes place in the air it will be very thorough because there is no impediment to the difierent particles changing place throughout the entire zone and because there is little, if any, possibility of packing of the material. You cannot pack material unless you have some rigid surface against which it is packed and one of the great difficulties in mixing finely divided material is that it is likely to cake or pack. This finely divided material in this case being mixed in the air, cannot of course, have any packing tendency whatsoever. In the modified form is obtained though here the streams come from various sources but they all concentrate upon a focus and the particles impinge one upon another and are mixed and comingle.

I claim:

1. The rocess of finely dividing and mixing material which consists in dropping the same in a relatively thin sheet into a beating zone, discharging it from said heating zone laterally by violent blows and causing the particles to travel laterally in converging and intersecting streams through the air, then arresting the flight of such -material and causing it to drop as finely divided and mixed materialout of the zone of treatment.

2. The process of finely dividing and mixing material which consists in dropping the the same result same in a relatively thin sheet into a horizontally disposed beating zone along the axis of said zone, discharging it from said heating zone laterally by violent blowsand causing the particles to travel laterally inconverging and intersecting'streams through the air, then arresting the flight of such material and causing it to drop as finely divided and mixed material out of the zone of treatment.

In testimony whereof, I afix my signature in the presence of two ,witnesses this 21st day of December, 1916.

AXEL G. J. RAPP. Witnesses:

MARION L. INGRAHAM, LYDIA M. SYLVANUS. 

